Democrat in Iowa 2nd District Race Goes to U.S. House of Representatives to Challenge Six Vote Loss
“She plans to ask that ballots that were legally cast but not included in the initial canvass be considered in the recount, which is prohibited under Iowa law”
Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks has already declared victory in the race for Iowa’s 2nd district, a contest that came down to just six votes.
Now, days later, the Democrat candidate Rita Hart has decided to challenge the results, in an unexpected way.
Hart is taking her case directly to the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.
John Sexton explains at Hot Air:
Iowa Democrat Rita Hart Will Challenge 6-Vote Loss By Appealing Directly To The House Of Representatives
The closest race in the country, a race which the Republican candidate won by a razor thin margin, is now going to be decided by Democrats in the U.S. House.
On Monday Iowa certified the vote for all state races including the incredibly close race in the 2nd district. The vote totals show that Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Rita Hart by just six votes. It’s the closest House race in the country since 1984 and the closest in Iowa in more than 100 years.
Once the vote was certified, Rita Hart had three options. The first was to concede the loss and move on. The second was to contest the outcome in Iowa’s courts. The deadline for a court challenge was close of business today. The third option was to appeal directly to the U.S. House itself which has the power to investigate and determine who will ultimately get the seat. Today, Rita Hart chose door number three:
We all watched #IA02 close from 47 votes to 6, but there are still ballots that haven't been counted. The only way to ensure all Iowans' votes are counted is a full examination of this election by the U.S. House that will consider every ballot cast. pic.twitter.com/NVksSnT6gd
— Rita Hart (@RitaHartIA) December 2, 2020
Roll Call provides some historical background:
Hart is filing a petition with the House Administration Committee under a 1969 law that lays out procedures for contesting state election results. She plans to ask that ballots that were legally cast but not included in the initial canvass be considered in the recount, which is prohibited under Iowa law…
Under the 1969 law, a certified election is presumed valid, and Hart has the burden of proof of showing it was not, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service…
The most recent instance of the House reversing the initial outcome of an election was more than three decades ago in 1985 in a contest for what was known as Indiana’s “Bloody 8th.” After the 1984 elections, Hoosier State officials certified the 8th District results showing Republican Rick McIntyre had defeated Democratic incumbent Frank McCloskey by just 34 votes.
McCloskey contested the election, and the House, which was controlled by Democrats at the time, initially decided not to seat either candidate. The House Administration Committee assembled a task force to investigate, and conducted its own recount which resulted in a four-vote lead for McCloskey, who was then sworn into office.
Miller-Meeks released this statement:
Rita Hart has chosen a political process controlled by Nancy Pelosi over a legal process controlled by Iowa judges.
All Iowans should be outraged by this decision. #ia02 pic.twitter.com/pdz44kz180
— Dr. Miller-Meeks (@millermeeks) December 2, 2020
I have only one question. Will the media condemn Rita Hart for refusing to concede?
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Haven’t we been told that challenging the results of an election is a threat to democracy? If the left didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all…
They only have one standard. That is that whatever works in their favor is the standard.
President Trump has a word for DEM and LI readers.
https://youtu.be/720O_yBLrTs
Also
Garcetti Orders All LA Residents To Remain In Their Homes Indefinitely,
Orders LAPD Enforcement…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/12/03/comrade-garcetti-orders-all-la-residents-to-remain-in-their-homes-indefinitely-orders-lapd-enforcement/
The 22nd CD in NY will turn Democrat the same way.
If Princess Pelosi has no problem with taking a seat away from an elected Republican using an obscure House rule that lets a Dem controlled House declare legal ballots the state rejected as illegal, then she should have no problem with Trump forcing the House, per the Consitution, to decide whether he or China Joe won.
She won’t, however, being the unprincipled power hungry hypocrite she is.
It’s hardly an “obscure house rule”. It’s the constitution of the united states. “Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.”
And if Trump manages to get his election into the house he wins. No question about that. The problem is getting it there, which at this stage may not even be possible. It would require several state legislatures actively passing a law to change the election rules after the fact, which would automatically forfeit the safe harbor of the electoral qualifications law. Plus, a change in state law would require their governors’ assent, which would not be coming since the governors are Dems. And he needs several states not only to change the existing law, but then also to appoint electors who will vote for him. If you were a state legislator would you dare do that and face your constituents’ wrath?
Not quite. When the House threw out Adam Clayton Powell (for financial shenanigans) in the 1960s, the USSC ( Powell v. McCormack, 1969) vacated that the House could not refuse a seat to someone who had been ‘duly elected’. Historically, the House has been deferential to state election proceedings; under the House’s precedents, a certificate of election from an authorized state official “constitutes evidence of a prima facie right to a congressional seat in the House.” When a House seat has a certified winner, then, there is a substantial burden of proof on the loser to convince the House to reject that decision by a state. Powell was able to meet that burden in his case.
So there are some limits.
The more recent case of the 8th district of Indiana, 1986, may be more instructive, as certification went back and forth, courts were involved, and the House ultimately seated the Democrat, though the state held that the Republican had one. A court challenge to that was unsuccessful.
So it depends, and I fully expect a prolonged wrangle.
In the Powell case nobody disputed his election. The house just didn’t want to seat him, and the court said no, you don’t get that choice. If you concede that he was elected then you have to seat him, and then try to put together a 2/3 vote to expel him.
The only really interesting thing about that case is that the vote not to seat him was over 2/3, so the house said what’s the difference? 2/3 of us don’t want him, so why can’t we just not seat him, and the court said no, refusal to seat and expulsion are two different things, and if you want to expel him hold a vote on that. They never did.
I forgot to mention the really interesting thing about that decision, which was the court taking judicial notice of a legal view that it appeared not to agree with.
It said you might not get 2/3 to expel him, because the house has for a very long time (well over a century) taken the view that it can only expel a member for an offense that took place since the last election. Since the house has traditionally had that view there may well be a lot of members who still do hold it, and therefore while they voted not to seat him they’d vote against expelling him.
However the court pointedly didn’t say that it agreed with this view, which to me says it didn’t. So it was really saying “Look, we have no problem with you expelling Powell if you like; but you do, or at least enough of you do that you may well not have the votes.” And the fact that there was no subsequent vote to expel would indicate that the court was right, enough house members held that view to make the difference.
You lost conceded so we can move on. Funny that’s what you say but never what the left does.
I have seen this movie before…
Democrat losses are from fraud but not Repubs. The new “equity under the law.”
Barr, the traitor, is right on it.
And he is fu-king traitor, let’s be honest.
Trump needs to fire Barr and appoint a few Special Counsels to investigate election fraud
Democrat privilege, anti-American privilege, or both.
“Rita Hart
@RitaHartIA
·
Dec 2
US House candidate, IA-2
We all watched #IA02 close from 47 votes to 6, but there are still ballots that haven’t been counted. The only way to ensure all Iowans’ votes are counted is a full examination of this election by the U.S. House that will consider every ballot cast.”
Those ballots are in the trunks of a Fleet of 1964 Cadillac Fleetwoods that left Chicago, headed for Iowa yesterday.
No joke.
The Cook County Political Corruption Machine has, since Obama, started stealing House seats in disticts on its borders. I see no reason why The Machine wouldn’t try to reach out a hundred miles or two west. Considering there are apparently no negative consequences for vote attempting fraud, even when it’s manifestly obvious.
It seems the Cook County political mafia was relatively well behaved this election. Or, they kept their level of election fraud below the resolution of detection, or Trump lost IL by enough to make a case of Cook County shenanigans immaterial.
Read somewhere a case a Republican won like this but not many ballots and the Democrat got the Democrat ran House to refuse to seat the Republican.
And Democrats are never done counting until they are ahead, elections from here on if we are heading in this direction.
“Continue counting ’til we win” has been the DNC policy since 2000 when Gore, with the help of a corrupt and incompetent SCOFL, attempted to steal Floriduh.
It makes sense (from the Communist point of view) that Hart is trying to get the House leadership to seat her instead of the Republican who defeated her.
The only question is: will Miller-Meeks get more support from the GOPe than Trump did?
Where do all these mysterious ballots come from? Does anyone ever ask?
Trump is in the process of showing us the various sources of unlawful ballots. Democrats have developed a multi-pronged process of manufacturing unlawful votes.
So, no explanation in this post about why those votes didn’t get counted. Just the assertion by the Dem that they are legal votes.
Yes, that bears explanation.
What is meant by that? Do they mean legally-cast, but late-arriving, and therefore not eligible to be counted? What other disability can a “legally-cast” vote have that would exclude it from counting? (I’m presuming here that a “curable” technical problem-that wasn’t cured timely-is not the reason they weren’t counted. Many curable problems put the legality/authenticity of a ballot into doubt, and without curing probably can’t be called “legal” ballots.)
Maybe to make a point, the Republican should challenge her Democrat to a duel. It is illegal, but when do Democrats care about elections and legality?
(The Seconds would of course intervene and call it off.)
50 states with 1 vote per state?
Gives the Republicans more votes.